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WooDROw Wilson 

Has he been for "America First?" 
Has he been for the great mass of the 
American people or has his Administra- 
tion stood in with the Special Interests? 



Address by 

JOHN BRISBEN WALKER 



At COOPER UNION 
On THURSDAY. NOVEMBER 18th. 1915 

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WOODROW WILSON 

Has he stood for **America First?' 



Address by John Brisben Walker 



In his recent address before the Manhattan Chib President 
Wilson challenged the people of the United States to give their 
criticism of his policies, previously, however, characterizing 
those who disagreed with him as "insincere" and "unneutral." 
"America First," is the catching slogan he then adopted. 

I came here tonight accepting the President's invitation to 
speak freely of our country's condition and needs; and I come as 
an American, whose family, for more than two hundred years, 
has been engaged in notable constructive work upon this con- 
tinent. 

It is entirely fair to take Mr. Wilson upon his own test of 
citizenship. Has he been for "x'\merica First?" Has he been 
acting for the great mass of his fellow citizens whose votes 
elected him? Has he been neutral? Has he been sincere? 

President Wilson has invited this analysis: it is especially 
important at this time, when the most completely organized 
conspiracy ever put on foot in America is undertaking to furnish 
profits to the manufacturers or armaments and munitions not 
only now but after the conclusion of the European war. 

To what lengths they are willing to go is shown in the 
almost inconceivable resolutions of the Union League Club, 
unanimously adopted, to bring all young Americans under a 
conscription law, in order to provide an army. Into this Union 
League Club are gathered the swollen fortunes of unjust ac- 
cumulation. It is the headquarters of the oligarchy of wealth 
which has so largely controlled the legislation of thig country 
since 1870. Its president furnished the infamous consternation, 
just defeated in New York by half a million majority. Failing 
to destroy democratic institutions by an adroitly drawn constitu- 
tion, they now have in mind to undermine the Republic by the 
introduction of militarism; while taxing the already over-burd- 

3 



ened country a thousand millions to furnish additional profits 
upon armor plate and military supplies. 

The great financial houses which control these armament 
works have planned a campaign of the most complete character. 
They seem to have neglected nothing. The powerful news- 
papers which they control, the noted lawyers and lawyer-poli- 
ticians who are employed by them, society which they dominate, 
and even the distinguished divines to whose support they con- 
tribute, have all been drafted for parts in this modern political 
drama. The Army and Navy and aspiring militia officers are, 
of course, engaged defacto. 

Cooper Union has witnessed many protests against injustice 
— many appeals in behalf of human liberty. Where you now 
sit, men and women once sat to listen to Lloyd Garrison and 
Abraham Lincoln in opposition to holding human beings as 
chattel slaves : Would that we had Mr. Lincoln alive today for 
our protection ! But the slavery that is practised in our factories 
and sweatshops of today, the exploiting of human beings that 
has grown up under this oligarchy of wealth, is more complete, 
more terrible and more dire in its results than black slavery 
ever was. 

What would "America First" mean if we had a President 
who was not a mere trickster in phrases? Suppose him intensely 
eager to restore democracy to the people. Suppose that we had 
a President anxious about that mass of Amerians who are living 
today in poverty or in fear of want, because of the robberies 
which are being perpetrated upon them by the highwaymen of 
modern finances. 

What could such a President do against the men who have 
gotten control of every necessity of life, and are annually reap- 
ing their hundreds of millions of illegal profits? 

Is not this a case where Ezekial's warder on the tower might 
get into action, without violating any of the ideals of Christ? 

The President will resent this suggestion. He has always 
had a poor opinion of his critics. "They are not very influen- 
tial," he ^said of them in his Washington speech before the 
Daught^rg of the American Revolution. No wonder he should 
think so.** Reading the praise of his administration in that por- 
tion of the metropolitan press controlled by the interests man- 
ufacturing armaments, he must believe himself the most popular 
of men. But let him not forget the tremendous power of pene- 
tration which truth possesses. As in the case of Roosevelt, 

4 



Truth takes time to do its work ; but the President will find that 
it will get there. 

I believe that when the inside history of the past six months 
comes to be written, it will tell of the most extraordinary con- 
spiracy ever hatched by mighty financial interests and subserv- 
ient politicians during the entire history of our Republic. Be- 
cause of that large section of the American press which is con- 
trolled, directly or indirectly, by the chief factors in this con- 
spiracy, the public has little comprehension of the facts. 

Perhaps the quickest wAy to realize the situation is to sup- 
pose that a President, for reasons known to himself, should 
resolve to aid England and the Allies. What would it be possible 
for him, as President of the United States, to accomplish? 

The first step would be to secure a Secretary of State who 
would be obedient to his will. A man of national reputation, in 
the State Department, would be a stumbling block. An amiable 
but obscure lawyer, previously connected with a law firm con- 
ducting an international claim business, having no national repu- 
tation to lose and anxious for salary and place, would most likely 
serve the purpose for which he would be appointed. The fact 
that he had never been heard of by the country, that he had 
taken no part in national politics, and that it was even disputed 
whether he was a Democrat or a Republican, would cut no 
figure. 

Although the Vera Cruz invasion of Mexico was a usurpa- 
tion, by President Wilson, of the powers of Congress, he suc- 
cessfully counted upon the distribution of offices to save him 
from impeachment. A declaration of war against Germany, 
however, without the authority of Congress, would not pass with- 
out arousing both the Senate and the House of Representatives. 
But, without subjecting himself to impeachment, he could: 

I. Issue through his Secretary of State demands so aggres- 
sive, so couched in peremptory language, as would ordinarily be 
met with like terms. These have been the usual preliminaries 
in those national duellos which have been so fatal to mankind. 

II. Although the President might already, in tHe/case of 
Germany, have declared against the financing of war loaYis, he 
could, when England was found to be in distress, reverse himself 
and give aid and encouragement to the loaning of five hundred 
millions of American money to the Allies. 

III. Although he might, already, in the case of Mexico, 

5 



have declared that it was the duty of the President to put an 
embargo upon the exportation of arms to peoples engaged in 
war, he could completely stultify himself and remove all ob- 
stacles to the shipment of those death-dealing implements which 
would increase the horror of the European war and delay peace. 

IV. Although he might have forbidden the building of 
vessels of war for nations engaged in conflict, he could connive 
at the shipment of submarines "knocked down" — to be put to- 
gether in Canada and sent across the Atlantic under their own 
power. 

V. While talking loudly of the sacredness of international 
law, he could permit the violation of the most cherished tradi- 
tions of that impalpable fiction of kings : 

By allowing neutral ports to be blockaded to American 

commerce; 

By tolerating the seizure of American ships, with neutral 

cargoes, upon the high seas, and the confiscation of their 

cargoes ; 

By permitting passengers to be taken from American 

ships, steaming upon the high seas ; 

Finally, by allowing American owned vessels, sailing 

under the American flag, between American ports, to be 

seized by a British cruiser and carried off to England. 

VI. He could unite his voice with that portion of the 
American press engaged in heaping insult and contumely upon 
American citizens who refused to side with the allies, and who 
denounced the monstrous position taken in permitting the ship- 
ment of arms and munitions. 

VII. He could refrain from decisive action to prevent the 
enlistment of American youth for service in Canadian and Eng- 
lish armies until the matter had become a public scandal. 

VIII. He could permit without serious protest the use of 
the American flag in the war zone by English vessels. 

What else could a President do? Nothing other than what 
has beferp «here set forth, without the aid of Congress. 

AH' fair-minded men and women in my audience will agree 
with me that I have stated the situation fully. If, while doing 
these things, he solemnly vowed his own neutrality and accused 
all who opposed him of being unneutral, his offenses would be 
aggravated. 

G 



And supposing that while loudly asseverating his slogan of 
"America First," he had converted the Presidency into a useful 
tool for Wall Street speculators who had allied themselves to 
foreign powers : What then would be his position before the 
American people — especially before that great mass of humble 
men and women who had, because of his protestations that he 
would be their defender against these very Wall Street specula- 
tors, given the votes to elect him? 

Is not this statement of the case a very fair one? 

Now that I have set forth the acts of which a President 
might be guilty if he were to become the secret ally of a foreign 
nation, let us take up dispassionately President Wilson's admin- 
istration during the past twelve months, and determine by 
careful analysis how far it has been in accord with strict neutral- 
ity and how far the President has kept in mind "America First." 
Let us determine carefully if Mr. Wilson has departed from 
those right ideals which he has so constantly reiterated for the 
benefit of his fellow countrymen. 

Having in mind the things of which a President could have 
been guilty if he were secretly to ally his great office with one 
or the other of the warring peoples, we shall have a standard by 
which we may measure Mr. Wilson's acts. 

First, however, we must go back a little into Mr. Wilson's 
life, and learn something of the man. Prior to 1911, the most 
important part of his days had been spent as President of 
Princeton University. The chief benefactors of this seat of 
learning had been men whose fortunes centered in and around 
Wall Street. Princeton had become a seat of education for 
every ideal that was opposed to political progress. Mark Hanaa 
found his best subscribers among Princeton's supporters. Grover 
Cleveland naturally took up his residence there upon his retire- 
ment from the Presidency, and was made a professor. 

The initiative, the referendum and the recall were regarded 
in Princeton as the suggestion of that personal devil in which 
so many distinguished gentlemen in that neighborhood pro- 
fessed belief. Every step in the direction of taking government 
out of the hands of an oligarchy of wealth and giving" power to 
the people, found valiant opponents at Princeton. And among 
them was Professor Wilson, the historian. His writings all 
showed subservience to the powers that were in control. He was 
so anxious to get rid of Bryan, that pestilent preacher against 
corruption, that he wrote in the least flattering of terms, asking 

7 



if no way existed to eliminate him from the Democratic Party. 

But in 1912 the country seemed destitute of men capable of 
administering the Presidency, ex"cept in behalf of the special 
interests. The Republicans offered Taft and Roosevelt, equally 
on the side of the people's enemies. The Democrats had to the 
front Speaker Clark, who had always run with the hounds and 
played with the fox. 

Suddenly Mr, Wilson, who, for years, had written against 
progressive measures, had completely reversed himself. The 
country seemed to have turned progressive, and Mr. Wilson 
began making progressive speeches. 

I confess that I was fool enough to believe that a man who 
had shown himself so completely out of sympathy with every 
interest of the common people, could have a change of heart. I 
wrote to him frankly alluding to his past beliefs : I was dis- 
posed to accept his change of heart if he would give me a per- 
sonal assurance to that effect. 

In my letter alluding to his histories, I said : *T would not 
have believed that I could have regard for a man who could 
write so ignorantly and with so much prejudice of place and 
class." And, further on, "I forgive the past and pin my faith 
not only to your honesty and integrity for the future, but that 
you see clearly all that the battle for humanity means," In his 
reply, Mr. Wilson said : "Your generous letter of February 19th, 
has gratified me very deeply indeed. It is indeed true that 
things are perfectly plain to me now, which formerly I could not 
see at all ; and what affects me most is the generosity of men 
who, like yourself, realize the reality of this change. I am 
certainly your debtor for your generous judgment of me. Sin- 
cerely yours, Woodrow Wilson." 

I sent copies of this letter to friends asking their aid in secur- 
ing the nomination of Mr, Wilson. Some of them in reply re- 
flected upon my intelligence: could I bring myself to believe 
that a "leopard could change its spots?" But I appeal to this 
audience: Did any man ever give more solemn pledge that he 
had reversed his beliefs than Mr. Wilson in this letter? 

Xo- tiirn to Mr. Wilson's favorite field, I might say that his 
conver.sitTn was not more sudden than that of Paul of Tarsus, 
who, from persecuting the Christians, suddenly became their 
bishop. But I ought to have recollected Chauteaubriand's famous 
words about repentance: "Christ gave but one example of 
deathbed repentance — that of the penitent thief on the cross. He 

S 



has given one in order that no man might despair; and but one in 
order that no man might presume." I doubt if a search of the 
modern political world would reveal a proportion as large as 
those of Chauteaubriand's. 

I appeal to you, my friends, here tonight and I appeal to the 
American public that believes in straightforward manliness, if 
these assurances of Woodrow Wilson did not mean that he had 
completely gone over from the Mark Hanna-Grover Cleveland 
conceptions of government and that hereafter he would be found 
fighting the battles of the common people. 

Now let us take up in their order the several acts which an 
unneutral President might have committed, and determine if 
our Chief Executive has been guilty of any one of them. 

First, we have the all important matter of furnishing arms 
and munitions to countries engaged in war in Europe. That 
Mr. Wilson believed the President to have absolute power to 
stop the shipment of munitions to countries engaged in war, 
we are given absolute proof by his action in forbidding ship- 
ments to Mexico. 

Therefore the matter becomes one of deliberate intention 
upon his part — deliberate willingness to permit the sacrifice 
of a million lives. What inducement could have wrought 
this change other than placating the powerful Wall Street inter- 
ests to whom it meant hundreds of millions to supply the allies 
with munitions, and still more if they could throw the United 
States into this European war? 

Upon Mr. Wilson rests the responsibility for this crime — 
the greatest the world has ever known, if we are to measure this 
infinitely cruel commerce by the resultant human suffering. 
What a frightful brand this Executive has stamped for all time 
upon the American people, by tolerating this bloody traffic! 
Without the animus of war, without the motive of self protection,. 
without even the excuse of hate, but solely from the sordid 
desire for dollars, every agency has been set to work to destroy 
the lives of our European brothers under the immediate approval 
of a Chief Executive, elected upon a platform of humanity ! 

The American people were mystified by the provocative 
language used in the communications which Washington ad- 
dressed to Berlin. Undoubtedly the wording was purposely 
arrogant and offensive. No one believes that if Germany had 
not been engaged in a life and death struggle, a note of this 

9 



character would have been sent ; unless there were deliberate 
intention to provoke a conflict. 

This act was distinctly the President's own. When his 
Secretary of State refused to sign, he was forced out of the 
Cabinet. The note sent Germany was in violation of the Consti- 
tution of the United States, which distinctly reserves to Con- 
gress the war-making power — a corollary of that article of the 
Constitution, being that the Secretary of State may not embroil 
us with a foreign nation by writing notes so peremptory as to 
leave Congress no alternative, in the event that the demand is 
met by a refusal, written in like terms. 

Mr. Wilson invaded Mexico in express violation of the 
Constitution of the United States. But undoubtedly, underly- 
ing all his actions, is the feeling that he is able to dole out offices 
— by this abominable power to bribe Senators and Representa- 
tives by bestowing office upon their constituents. 

There is little likelihood of his being held to account by 
men dependent upon this almost kingly favor. Perhaps the 
most supreme disregard ever shown for neutrality was when 
Mr. Wilson permitted an officer of the Treasury Department to 
associate himself with the New York bankers who welcomed 
England's Royal Commission, sent over to negotiate a war loan 
of five hundred millions to the Allies.. The President not only 
allowed this to pass without rebuke, but he has stood in silent 
approval while the American people are being made the victims 
of this foreign confidence game — while the United States mails 
are used to extract money from the pockets of farmers and 
workingmen upon securities that may prove worth fifty cents 
•on the dollar, if this war is long continued. 

Moreover, Mr. Wilson knows that these dollars taken from 
American banks are needed here and now for American industry. 
His own Secretary of the Treasury has just reported that more 
than one thousand national banks are charging the business men 
of the south and west from ten up to one hundred and twenty 
per cent per annum for money with which to transact business. 
Does this state of aflfairs look like "America First?" Reflect for 
a moment the handicap put upon the national industry by these 
banks operating as a part of the National Treasury Department. 
Has Mr. Wilson been excited over these injustices? He, on the 
■contrary, reserves his indignation for the hyphenated citizens 
who eliminate from Congress a Wall Street superserviceable. 

10 



Perhaps the most flagrant violation of neutrality committed 
by Mr. Wilson is the permission granted by him to build Ens^- 
lish submarines in this country, and ship them to Canada 
"knocked down" — sailing them thence across the seas. This 
needs no discussion. It is a bold, direct, inexcusable violation 
of neutrality, which, in view of our claims against England for 
the construction of confederate privateers, may some day in- 
volve us in endless trouble and cost. Perhaps this may seem to 
furnish to Mr. Wilson the excuse needed for the appropriation 
of a thousand millions of dollars for "preparedness." 

How could President Wilson play into the hands of Eng- 
land better than by allowing her to clear American shipping 
from the seas? For nearly a year the State Department showed a 
disinclination to interfere with England, gobbling in the cargoes 
of American ships. Finally, evidently confident of the approval 
of Mr. Lansing, a British cruiser seizes upon an American ship, 
sailing from New York to one of our own Southern ports, and 
carries her oflf to England. To what pass will the affrontery of 
England and the complacency of Mr. Wilson come next? 

I need only touch upon the use of the American flag by 
English vessels to confuse and deceive the enemy — nothing 
could be better calculated to put American seamen and Americaa 
vessels in jeopardy — and come to the final count in this long 
catalogue of the President's unneutrality. 

We have in the United States probably twenty millions of 
American citizens of German descent. They are largely people 
of education and industry. Their chief fault has laid in their 
refusal, in the past, to be deeply interested in the real problems 
of our government. They have too often allowed their votes 
to be used by demagogues working as an ally of the special 
interests. But I am inclined to think that what they have 
recently gone through will permanently cure this indifiference. 
Hereafter they are likely to realize the danger of permitting 
their fellow citizens to be ravaged by Wall Street. 

Naturally this citizenry of German derivation, having rela- 
tives and friends in the present war, have been anxious for peace. 
Loyal to the United States, they view with alarm the eflforts 
of the pro-all}^ arm manufacturers of Wall Street to draw this 
country into antagonism to Germany. Friendly to Mr. Wilson, 
they were astounded by his successive steps in unneutrality. In 
a great national convention at Chicago, they joined with peace 
advocates representing an American citizenship that had in it 

11 



the strains of many nationalities, to demand strict neutrality 
and to oppose the development of that militarism in America 
which has been the misfortune of Europe. 

What, then, is their surprise, when Mr. Wilson in a formal 
address, singles them out and applies to them insulting phrases ! 
It is an unprecedented spectacle, this of the President of a 
great nation singling out some twenty millions of its people, 
distinguished for the high class of their citizenship, and without 
justification applying to them language calculated to humiliate. 

Because of efforts covering more than twenty years in 
behalf of Peace and "World Confederation," I was made pre- 
siding officer of that Chicago convention. I came into contact 
with Americans of German descent as never before. I was im- 
pressed with their earnestness and sincerity. I do not believe 
that America holds better citizens. The time will come when 
Mr. Wilson's intemperate language will be regarded as a mis- 
fortune to the entire people of the United States. 

After reviewing these facts, I submit to you, my audience, 
and I submit to the American people these questions : 

Who has proven himself to be unneutral? 

Who has shown that, instead of working for "America 
First," he has been conspiring to aid those interests in Wall 
Street which seemed likely to him to control the next presi- 
dential nomination? 

Let us turn once more to Mr. Wilson's stress upon "sin- 
cerity" and "America First" and see what platform he was 
elected upon, and gauge what Mr. Wilson might have done if 
he had been really for "America First." Almost his first step 
after entering upon the Presidency was to take the Aldrich Bill, 
which had been repeatedly refused by Congress, and almost 
unanimously rejected by the American people, and rehabilitate 
it under another name and with himself and three men that 
had never taken part in national financial discussions as sponsors. 
Mr. Wilson did not tell the people that this Federal Reserve 
bill had been written not by its nominal sponsors, but by Wall 
Street. I and others reminded him that a bill of such a character 
should have public discussion through at least one congressional 
campaign. At the behest of the men whom he was even then 
serving, he jammed it through by the force of the patronage 
which is dispensed from the White House. 

The proof of its Wall Street parentage was demonstrated 
when an attempt was made to m^ert provisions providing for 

12 



those farmers who are victims of the ten to one hundred and 
twenty per cent, loans, already referred to. Not for a minute 
was Wall Street interested in providing for anything but its own 
speculations, and Mr. Wilson ignored the farmer. One had only 
to read Mr. Wilson's chapter on the history of Nicholas Biddle's 
United States Bank and its destruction by General Jackson, to 
see how little he understands finance. 

I am strongly inclined to believe that Mr. Wilson was com- 
mitted to the passage of this bill by certain influential Wall 
Street interests, during the progress of his campaign for elec- 
tion. The rapid, unhesitating way in which it was suddenly 
produced and pushed through has every appearance of a cut 
and dried job. 

This act has in it the most tremendous powers of political 
control of any measure ever passed by Congress. It has already 
become a mere adjunct of Wall Street operations. It will be 
interesting when we learn what part it is playing in discounting 
merchantable paper, in order to leave other money free for the 
five hundred million loan of the allies. 

Another example of Mr. Wilson's conception of "America 
First." Take the Parcels Post ! Mr. Wilson came into office, 
pledged to see a real parcels post established — one that should 
take up the fruit and vegetables of the farmer which are now, 
so often, left to rot on the ground, because of prohibitive trans- 
portation rates, and place them in the laps of the starving poor 
of our great cities. 

But the express companies seem to be in close touch with 
the Wilson administration. No determined step has been made 
to take over the express business for the Post Office, when the 
law places it. The post office rates are made to play into the 
hands of the express companies and the people are sacrificed; 
fruit rots in the orchards, and vegetables decay in the ground; 
the poor starve because the pledges of the men in the White 
House were only made to get in on. 

What does Mr, Wilson mean when he says America must 
come first? Does he mean by America his friends, the express 
companies? 

What anxiety has Mr. Wilson shown since his entrance into 
the White House, to curb those great combinations of capital 
which are today in control of almost every article upon which 
America depends for comfort? In the office of Attorney General, 
it was essential to have a friend of the people, not of the trusts. 

13 



It was a favorite trick of Wall Street to secure an Attorney 
General who will seemingly prosecute. We might as well have 
a Wickersham in office as Mr. Wilson's attorney general. 

The Baltimore Convention recognized that, in the past, 
Presidents have been tempted to sacrifice the public by trading 
lor the influence of the big interests for a renomination. Having 
in mind the lamentable spectacle of a Roosevelt breaking his 
solemn promise regarding a third term, the Convention deter- 
mined to put it out of the reach of the candidate for the Presi- 
dency to break his word, and pledge him that there should be no 
second term. 

Mr. Wilson has not hesitated to quote the Baltimore platform 
when it served his purpose. But now he publicly declares that 
the pledge of no second term meant nothing. It was an idle 
declaration with no other purpose than to fool the people. It 
kas served its design — let it pass to the scrap heap. "Of course, 
U the people show that they must have me for a second term, I 
must obey their command" — the public meaning the clamor of 
the paid press controlled by armament manufacturers. 

How is it possible for men who have been honored so highly 
by the people of America, to descend so low in the scale of 
integrity ! 

And again, speaking of sincerity, what of the man to whom 
woman suffrage was so repugnant that he rudely repulsed dele- 
gations of distinguished women wishing to lay their views before 
him? Yet when the great mass of American voters seemed 
inclining towards woman suffrage, Mr. Wilson voted for it in 
New Jersey under the absurd plea that "woman suffrage is a 
local issue." 

But there is an even more serious aspect to the matter. 
With the peoples of five continents obsessed by the fierce an- 
tagonisms of war, civilization had its only hope in the hundred 
millions of Americans within the United States. There was 
every reason why we should set an example to the world. Regret 
that our brothers should be engaged in war, determination that 
no act of ours should seem to countenance the barbarities being 
perpetrated under the name of civilized warfare, a generous 
solicitude for the misfortunes of all countries, and the most care- 
ful guarding of our neutrality, would bring it to pass that in the 
course of time all countries at war would turn to the United 
States for aid in bringing the end of so frightful a contest. It 
was the world's one best hope. 

14 



Far-reaching in its consequences has been Mr. Wilson's 
crime of unneutrality, and profound has been the disappoint- 
ment with which thinking men who sympathize deeply with the 
miseries of their European brothers, have viewed the grossly 
unneutral acts committed by his administration. 

I will venture to predict Mr. Wilson's future as I, in 1907, 
in this very hall, forecast the future of Theodore Roosevelt. 

To read the Wall Street press. President Wilson is today 
the most popular man in America. He himself believes this. 
Yet one so poor in stamina, so unalert to the needs of the great 
mass of humanity, so callous to the sufferings of the unfor- 
tunate, and so willing to permit his administration to serve the 
great special interests, will one day stand exposed, as Roosevelt 
today stands naked in his character. 

Remember, Roosevelt was once the idol of America. Be- 
cause of his promises, the public hoped great reforms from him 
as because of Mr. Wilson's promises, they had hopes at the 
beginning of his administration. Each of these men had the 
opportunity to deserve more of their fellow men than Abraham- 
Lincoln, because the issues of this hour are of greater moment 
to mankind than those of 1861. But they have failed, because 
neither had Abraham Lincoln's high ideals and integrity of 
purpose. Roosevelt betrayed the common people, as Mr. 
Wilson has been secretly betraying them; and ultimately he 
stood fully revealed: as Mr. Wilson will one day stand fully 
revealed to his now applauding countrymen. 

And as today there are none so poor as to do Mr. Roosevelt 
reverence — perhaps I should except Mr. Perkins — so Mr. 
Wilson's hour will come when, cold-blooded, selfish, the betrayer 
of the welfare of his fellow men, he will be cast aside by the 
interests which now use him. This, because he will no longer 
be useful for fooling the people. 

And he will stand alone, an object of pity to his friends, of 
great opportunities sacrificed before the flattery of the powerful 
interests which sought only to use him — a monument of failure, 
because he lacked the courage to fight unjust accumulators of 
wealth, and take his stand with suffering humanity. 



16 



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